Jessica HickmanThought Leader | TEDx Speaker | 2 x Author | Leadership

Saasyan SafeVillage interview with Jessica Hickman

Name: Saasyan SafeVillage interview with Jessica Hickman
Uploaded: 2021-08-18T02:07:04+00:00
Duration: 27 s
Channel: Jessica Hickman
Description: In this Safe Village interview, Jessica Hickman—founder of bullyology.com, author of Bullyologist, and educator—discusses the pervasive bystander effect…

18 Aug 2021 · 0 min

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0:27

In this Safe Village interview, Jessica Hickman—founder of bullyology.com, author of Bullyologist, and educator—discusses the pervasive bystander effect in bullying situations and why people default to inaction. She explains that this is not due to moral failing but a lack of education, tools, and resources to become upstanders. Hickman describes the emotional turmoil parents experience when their child is bullied, often leading to confrontational or angry interactions with schools. She emphasizes the need for guided strategies that help parents respond effectively without escalating tension. Central to her approach is the Upstander Action Plan, a framework designed to empower students, teachers, and parents with skills and capabilities to shift from passive bystanders to active upstanders, fostering a collaborative, safer school environment.

Unfortunately, the more people that witness an incident, whether it's bullying, harassment, cyberbullying, the more as humans we diffuse responsibility and fall into the trap of the bystander effect. I think that people become bystanders by default, not because they're bad people, but because they haven't been given the education, the tools, the resources, and the capability to know how to move from bystander to upstander.
Welcome to the Safe Village, a community for everyone who cares about about student safety and wellbeing. My guest today is Jessica Hickman. Jessica is the founder of bullyology.com. She's the author of Bullyologist. She's a speaker and educator.
When your child is suffering bullying, it hurts. Often I find the parents will go down to the school shouting and, you know, come into confrontation with the teachers or become emotionally charged at the parents. Fortunately, there will always be bullies or perpetrators and targets. It's helping parents know how to deal with bullying to get the outcome they want without themselves becoming really irate because it does happen. So I suffered bullying for 3 and a half years. We build an Upstander Action Plan to actually drive the Upstander movement in the school community, give them the tools and capabilities to actually develop their skills around being an Upstander, and together we co-create magic, I say to the students.